.A. TREATISE 



ON 



Human Physiology 

<{AND THE)»>- 

PATHOLOGY OF HUMAN DISEASES, 

r hen in the Practice of Medicine, as Practiced by 
Physicians Generally y is not only shown to be Radi- 
oally wrong, but an Unmitigated Fraud. 
T<> which is added a brief Chapter 

— - g.ON THE ra — . 

ISEASES AND GENERAL TREATMENT 

—«(OF)»- . . 

HOUSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND SWINE. 

I& ^mSfftSS^ —BY— . . - 

WM B. DOUTHIT. 

SIOUX CITY, IOWA. 

WATKtUa & SMEAD, PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 

% : ■ 1879. . ■ . • - . 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1879, by VShUliam B. Dnuthit. 



-ON 



Human Physiology 

((((AND THE))))- 

PATHOLOGY OF HUMAN DISEASES, 

Wher&m the Practice of Medicine as Practiced by 
Physicians Generally, is not only shown to be Radi- 
cally wrong, but an Unmitigated Fraud. 
To which is added a brief Chapter 

— -ff.ON THE f5 - 

DISEASES AND GENERAL TREATMENT 

-~--«((OF))),- 

HORSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND SWIr> T E. 



BY 



WM. B. DOUTHIT. 

\,\ r o.J.pMJ.Q- 

- -((())))- v j8v9. *c$^/' 



SIOUX CITY, IOWA. 

\VATKINS & 8MEAB, PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
1879. 



7/ 



PREFACE. 

It is not claimed that all is written in the following brief 
pages that ought to have been. It was my wish to deliver a 
number of lectures and have them written by a short hand 
reporter, and published, but I had not the money to pay the 
expenses myself, and could not induce those who had to take 
any stock in the enterprise. 

I have stated the cause of the principal diseases, both ma- 
terial and contagious, as well as phlegmatic, in order that 
the reader may know that they (the diseases) come naturally . 
and are thrown off the same way. And that all readers may 
know that there is no medicine that will assist the system to 
throw off the disease, but in every case injures the patient. 
And the fact that all medicines of commerce or those extract- 
ed at the pharmacopoea, are the indigestible substances of 
vegetables, refined minerals and bone dust. And this fact is 
abundant proof of the above assertion. And the reason that 
about every thing that is called medicine, makes the taker 
sick is that it is indigestible, and the stomach has to contract 
to expel it. In the following pages I have made many asser- 
tions without stopping to prove them, because it would have 
made this book larger than I can put through the press- 
Many of these truths are self-evident, others can be dem- 
onstrated, and the remainder are conclusions of facts that are 
well-known. And if any man or fraternity of men dispute 
any thing I have positively asserted, I challenge those men to 
meet me in fair debate, and I will prove every statement that 
I have positively made. I admit that there are many diseases 
introduced and passed by with a few brief sentences that re- 
quire at least an hour's talk. But these statements are so 
plain and simple that all adult readers will readily understand 
them by experience in their own person and observation in 
others. They will readily see that physicians have in all ages 
of the world tried to counteract the symptoms of disease, and 
if they could have done so they would have killed every pa- 
tient they treated. 

I would have written a few sentences, in this little book, 
upon obstetrics, were it not for the aversion that many parents 
have of young people knowing any thing about their internal 



3 



genital organs. And I would like to write a chapter on pri- 
vate diseases, particularly syphilis (clap), but I expect to 
kindle the ire of the whole pill fraternity, and if they have a 
shadow of an opportunity they will prosecute me for selling 
obscene books. Therefore, until legislative bodies admit me 
to be a standard medical author, I must forbear. But if any 
person of either sex, wishes to know how the above named 
disease originates, how its symptoms appear in every stage, 
and how the system throws off the malady, he or she can, in 
confidence, write to me, inclosing 25 cents, and they will by 
return mail receive the desired information. 

And as soon as the sale of this little pamphlet will enable 
me to do so, I will furnish the reading public with a new edi- 
tion, consisting of several hundred pages and neatly bound. 
A book that any lady or gentleman would like to add to her 
or his library, and proving at the same time that the prac- 
tice of medicine is the most nefarious fraud that exists. It 
was not my privilege to graduate at any college or universi- 
ty, or to lecture before the faculty of either, consequently I 
have had no degree, title or appellation conferred upon me. 
Therefore, I shall assume none, but leave my readers to judge 
whether I am master of my subject or not. 

It was stated in many of the newspapers in the State of 
Iowa, that the people petitioned their last legislature to deliver 
them from quack doctors, and while I sympathize with them 
I assure them that their only complete deliverance consists 
in letting them (the doctors) severely alone, because as far as 
doing them any good is concerned they are all quacks. 

If failing to do any good was their only crime there would 
be some shadow of mitigation, but they (the doctors) have be- 
come so numerous that they cannot make a living practicing 
physic unless they know how to make patients sick and keep 
them so until they can make a big bill against them. 

I deem it proper before closing these prefatory remarks, 
to recommend that in every city, town and village where 
there are practitioners of physic, that the best informed citi- 
zens call meetings and cite their beloved physicians to attend 
and show cause why they should not be estopped from their 
deadly practice. If they fail to attend or to put in an appear- 
ance, a decree of estoppage should be entered against them by 
default. 



EGOTISTICAL INTRODUCTION, 



It is not ray intention to write a history of medicine as the 
most of writers do who write upon that subject. But, inas- 
much as I so widely differ with all who have preceded me, I 
thought a short history of myself and the circumstances un- 
der which I claim to have made the discoveries I shall claim 
to have made in the following pages, would not be uninter- 
esting to the reader. 

It is not necessary here to state what those discoveries, are, 
unless I make this introduction a compendium of the work 
which it probably is as well to do. 

I was financially unsuccessful. A physician who had prac- 
ticed some in my family, advised me to practice medicine. I 
told him that I was not educated to the practice of physic, and 
was consequently not qualified to jDractice the healing art. 
He told me to give nothing that would kill and trust to na- 
ture. I noticed however, that he (the doctor) had the mis- 
fortune to treat very many fatal cases. So that either a mys- 
terious Providence removed a great many or he gave some 
poison medicines. I have no doubt but it was his medicines 
that killed every one of his patients who died. 

And, indeed, I believe that every untimely death (murder 
with visible weapons excepted) is caused by using medicine. 
And that is one of the reasons that I am writing this book. 

THE BEGTjSTNIXG- OF MY MEDICAL EDUCATION. 

I first read Dr. Bedford's lectures on obstetrics. But be- 
ing so limited in the science of human anatomy I understood 
it very imperfectly. I next obtained some of the best text 
books on human anatomy, studied them until I acquired a 
good practical knowledge of the science of Human Physiolo- 
gy. Medical Chemistry, etc., next claimed my attention. 

I next thought I would learn the cause of diseases before 
offering my services to the people as a medical practitioner, 
because I thought if I knew the cause or causes of diseases I 
could much more successfully treat them. 

I next read very carefully McClellan on Lime upon the 
practice of medicine and surgery, so that I can amputate a 
limb as scientifically and mechanically as the best of surgeons. 



5 



I read several other standard authors, who in treating on the 
symptoms of diseases, showed themselves to be men of science 
and deep research. But when they acknowledged themselves 
to be totally ignorant of the cause of fever (the leading dis- 
ease of all countries), I was almost discouraged. For the 
benefit and edification of the reader, I will state that I have 
gone completely through the process of what is popularly 
known as the study of medicine, except attending in the dis- 
secting room and hearing the lecture of the Professor of anato- 
my and surgery, and seeing him dissect his subjects. But this 
only qualifies us for the practice of, surgery. I recollected 
that Cutter and Thrall had asserted that physiologists did not 
agree upon the process of the generating of animal heat. I 
thought that this belonged to our material nature and ought 
to be understood by scientific men. I knew the component 
parts of the atmosphere ; I knew that they were named oxy- 
gen, nitrogen and carbon. And that oxygen', when separated 
from the other gases, was so hot that it would melt the hard- 
est steel. And that Nitrogen would congeal (freeze) water in 
any climate. 

I had also learned that while we breathed the air the lungs 
retained a percentage of the hot gas or oxygen. The ques- 
tion very naturally arose, how did this hot gas permeate and 
warm the whole system? As I intend when I introduce these 
subjects, to argue them briefly, I here only make assertions 
which I hope to prove when I take them up, and will here 
affirm that I had not studied medicine to exceed six months 
until I saw very plainly that caloric heat was the whole cause 
of the circulation of the blood, and that an accumulation of 
"said" heat was the cause of all fevers of all grades and in- 
tensities of heat. I also made the grand discovery that the 
practice of medicine was the most deadly and outrageous fraud 
that ever was practiced upon a misguided and erroneously 
educated people. The Hydropathic (water cure) positively 
depletes (weakens) the patient on whom it is practiced, with- 
out doing any good. In cases of croup of little children, 
bathing in tepid water is very beneficial, because it opens the 
lymphatic glands and starts the phlegm to the surface. 

To say that medical practitioners as well as professors of all 
schools, are knaves or basely ignorant of the (so called) sci- 
ence in which they practice, are the mildest words I now think 



6 



of to express their true character. If they have made any ef- 
forts to educate themselves in the profession they propose to 
practice, they certainly know that their medicines can do no 
good but positive injury. 

The above assertion may offend some gentlemen and ladies, 
who have full confidence in the beloved family physician ; if 
so, I cannot help it, it is, nevertheless true. Indeed, I have 
worse things than I have said yet to say. 

How often, when persons overworked, and consequently 
feel weak and exhausted, appetite for food gone, he or she, 
as the case may be, thinks it necessary to call a physician. He 
will readily come if the patient is wealthy. He enters the 
chamber of the sick with an air of great importance, makes 
considerable many inquiries relative to the patient's previous 
symptoms. 

As soon as his wisdom is fully educated and his diagnosis 
made up, he pronounces it a violent attack of typhoid fever. 
He gives a dose of morphia to check the beating of the pulse 
and soon after a dose of qninea (quinine), to break the fever, 
and a dose of castor oil once in a while, or pills, to keep the 
bowels open. He knows that this treatment will keep the 
patient sick and unable to get up for an indefinite length of 
time, from twenty to thirty days; and the patient is danger- 
ously sick, and the doctor thinks it necessary to visit him 
every day. And all of this time the doctor will make the 
patient's family and neighbors believe that it was the most 
obstinate case of typhoid fever with which he had ever been 
called upon to contend. 

It is evident that this learned physician knew as well as lie 
knew his right hand from his left, that nothing ailed the pa- 
tient but want of rest, or if he had the fever that his medicines 
would do him no good but positively harm. Indeed the life 
of the patient was in great danger when the stimulus of the qui- 
nine was withdrawn. His medical highness also knew that if he 
had told the patient to get up and walk out where the air could 
blow upon him he would soon be well. But there was a chance 
to make sixty, ninety or a hundred dollars, and he did not try 
to resist the temptation but was "hard up" and watching for 
such a job. 

Xow kind reader, if you have never been the victim of such 
a fraudulent job above described, please look back and reflect 



7 



how often you have seen such things practiced upon your 
neighbors. If you are forty or even thirty years old, you no 
doubt recollect very many such instances. * 

If doctors are educated — and if they are not, they are base 
impostors — they know that fever and indeed the whole cata- 
logue of malarial diseases are caused by obstructed glands, 
whereby caloric heat accumulates in the blood. That if said 
heat flows through the lymphatic glands to the surface, 
it is called fever. And if said heat flows from the arteries and 
veins through the lacteal glands into the bowels, causes 
what is called cholera of some grade, owing to the intensity 
of the heat. 

~Now indulgent reader, when you go to these men for med- 
icine to check a bowel complaint, why do they not tell you 
that a bowel complaint is nature's antidote to remove the 
cause. That if the intense heat remained in the small calibre 
of the bowel it would soon burn that function to a crisp and 
the patient could live but a short time. 

Your medical men certainly know that bowel complaint 
among infants, cholera infantum, is a natural consequence 
during dentition or teething. They, a few years ago, gave 
calomel and morphia in cases of infantile cholera, but now 
they give laudanum drops in such quantities that they — the 
drops — close the air cells of the lungs, so that these functions 
can not receive a sufficient quantity of heat to keep the blood 
in motion, and the little innocent sinks into the death torpor 
and dies, and the doctor reports that the child died of sinking 
chills, when the truth is that it was poisoned to death with 
morphia. And if these doctors knew any thing about human 
physiology, and the effects of such medicine on the human 
system, they would certainly have known that morphia was 
a deadly narcotic, and would certainly bring on congestion or 
congestive chills. 

Medical practitioners ought and certainly do know that 
medicine does no person any good. Calomel (refined mercu- 
ry) when cast into the stomach causes the stomach to con- 
tract, thereby injuring the interior coating of that function. 
The heat concentrating there to give life and vigor to the 
stomach, sufficient to expel the calomel, and sending caloric 
heat through the glands of the mouth, destroying the enamel 
of the teeth, burning the thin membranous skin of the 



8 



mouth until it breaks, thereby causing ptyalism or salivation 
and doing innumerable injuries, besides the morbid action 
that follows the high stimulus, without doing an atom of 
good. 

Quinea is almost as bad. It is so indigestible that the 
stomach has to contract almost as much as calomel, in that, 
it makes the stomach almost as sick, because it is indi- 
gestible, and that function has to contract to expel it, which 
always injures the interior coating more or less. All expec- 
torants operate in that way, that is, they cause the stomach 
to contract, by which the lungs expand, that they may the 
more readily let go the phlegm that obstructs them, so that 
the stomach is badly injured, while no other function receives 
any permanent benefit. And morphia (opium powders and 
laudanum drops) is a deadly narcotic, and more people are 
killed by taking it than any other drug poison. And if these 
medical men do not know that it causes the air cells of the 
lungs to contract or indeed close up so that these functions 
cannot absorb a sufficiency of oxygen to keep the blood in 
motion, they had better quit practicing. I affirm, however, 
that they do know these things as well as they know that 
two and two make four. All surgeons know that chloroform 
when the effluvium is inhaled into the lungs, partly closes the 
air cells of these most important functions, so that life and 
consciousness are partly suspended when a painful surgical 
operation is to be performed. 

I have read a work on obstetrics (midwifery), wherein the 
administration of chloroform was recommended to ladies who 
were about to become mothers, to kill the pain consequent 
upon parturition. 

All medically educated men know that if too large a dose 
of chloroform, morphia ether and the whole catalogue of anes- 
thetics were given, that they become deadly poisons, for which 
there is no antidote. Yet they give and prescribe these poi- 
sons as though they cared not how many they killed. They 
know better than to think they ever cure any patient, but 
they practice physic for their bread and butter and the fabrics 
that wrap their guilty carcasses. I do not wonder that the 
ancient Romans, on one occasion, banished their physicians 
from the Empire, on account of the sickness and death that 
followed their practice. And I solemnly declare that if one 



9 



tenth of the murderous villainy practiced by doctors and 
druggists and then laid or charged upon the Deity. I care 
not how highly civilized, christianized or law-abiding our 
people may be, they would strip the druggists' shelves of their 
poisons and consign them to destruction. And druggists and 
doctors would have to change localities or be hung by the 
neck to the first limb that would bear their guilty carcassess, 
for the number of their victims is named legion. 

And I hope that when this little book is read, that courts 
of justice will no longer permit these vultures calling them- 
selves doctors, to rob and plunder the people, by virtue of 
law, but that they (the courts) will denounce every doctor 
who comes into court with a note or bill of accounts for med- 
ical services, with all the damages he may have done the pa- 
tient. And I hope further, that legislatures will enact laws 
to prevent these murderers from collecting pay for killing 
people. 

I owe the reader an apology for saying or writing what I 
have written about a respected and supposed to be respecta- 
ble profession of practitioners. If so, the apology I have to 
offer is that what I have written is strictly true. And there are 
many more such facts that ought to be written but my heart 
sickens when I think of such base villainy. I would say, 
kind readers, that if I have offended you I cannot help it. 
He who spoke as no man spake, offended his hearers on 
some occasions, but his only fault was to tell the truth. And 
if I offend by telling what is strictly true, I am prepared to 
hear whatever may be offered me until the people see that I 
have told them nothing but the truth and not near all that is 
true concerning the villainy of these men. And what makes 
these men (the doctors) so villainously criminal, is that they 
know that a common dose of their medicine does no person 
any good, and if they get too big a dose it is certain death, 
and yet they will give and prescribe them for sordid gain, 
not caring whether their patients live or die. I will here 
ask the sympathy of all readers, especially those who differ 
with me. ' If you should find one of your friends dead with 
his clothes all stained with his own blood, and see the ghastly 
wounds from which it flowed, your moral feelings would be 
no more deeply offended than mine are when I see any person 
poisoned to death with medicine. 



10 



It is criminal murder in either case. But I know kind 
reader that if you and the rest of mankind knew what I do of 
the effects of all materials called medicines, that the business 
of druggists and doctors would be eternally dead. You would 
cease to dread those diseases which have been thought to be 
the most fatal, you would know that nature was perfect as 
nature's God, and all you would have to do to prove that 
would be to let patience ha ve her perfect work. You would 
know that the wisest doctor that ever practiced physic has no 
knowledge of the existence of disease in the human system 
until nature has set up an excitement in the body to remove 
the cause. It is by these symptoms they pronounce or- tell 
what the disease is. 

And it appears that in former ages of the world the doc- 
tors tried to counteract these symptoms, and if they could 
they would have killed every patient they treated. I have 
already made this introduction much more voluminous than 
I intended, and while there is much more I would like to 
write I will invite the indulgent reader to a careful perusal 
of the following chapters. The Author. 



11 



CHAPTER I. 

BLOOD MAKINO CAUSE OF THE CIRCULATION — CAUSE OF FEVER. 

In order to understand or know how diseases approach us, 
it is indispensably necessary to know the office that each func- 
tion performs in giving and prolonging human life. The process 
of blood-making will next claim our attention; mastication of 
the food we take is the first process. Second, deglutition or swal- 
lowing. Third, digestion, the process of which is that the chylor- 
ic fluid of the stomach extracts the nutritive properties of the 
food we eat. And further, this chyloric fluid is passed through the 
small ducts or tubes — commonly called thoracic ducts — from 
the stomach to the lungs, and there the said chyle meets with 
the air we breathe and the oxygen or hot gas warms that fluid 
and gives it a bright red color and prepares it to circulate 
through the arteries, giving life and vigor to every muscle in 
the system. 

The three component parts of blood are called coagulum 
fibrin and serum. 

It is thought that the fibrine contains the principal life- 
giving substance. If my readers all knew what of human 
physiology that could be learned of that science, by reading 
the text books now extant, it would not be necessary to write 
so much, but as I expect that thousands will read this book who 
never read a word of human physiology, I have been the more 
particular to explain these things. 

If doctor Harvey, of England, wh^en he discovered the fact 
that the blood circulated, had discovered the positive cause 
and cause of all fever of all grades and intensities, and pub- 
lished all to the world together, it would have saved millions 
of untimely deaths and would have abolished the dosing 
practice of medicine. When Dr. H. made his brilliant dis- 
covery (as the doctors now call it) his co temporary physicians 
not only disputed it but derided and scorned him and applied 
every contemptible epithet upon him that their ingenuity 
could invent. 

And the fact that the blood in healthy animals is all of the 



12 



time in motion, would not now be understood among the 
masses, had not the people understood Dr. H's demonstrations 
independently and in opposition to the medical practitioners 
of that day (1616) and generation. 

Those who are acquainted with (doctors I mean) the humble 
writer, call him a monomaniac because he tells them (among 
other things equally true) that their dosing outrages common 
sense and that a man must be a knave or a fool (a little rough 
I admit but it is nevertheless true) to practice physic, j But 
I will venture the assertion that if any sane man or woman 
will read attentively this little book, that he nor she will ever 
take another dose of sickening medicine to break fever, nor 
indeed for any other purpose. ]N~ow kind reader I assert that 
caloric heat is the cause of the circulation of the blood. I am 
aware that it is; generally ascribed \ to the heart and it (the 
blood) passes through that muscle, yet it would no more cir- 
culate the blood without heat than a steam engine would drive 
machinery without steam. The beating we feel at the heart 
is caused by valves opening and closing to let arterial blood 
pass from the lungs into the arteries, to give life and? vigor to 
the system, and return the venous blood to the lungs, to be 
warmed again by thefoxygen we inhale into those functions. 
If there is any derangement in these valves that they do not 
work, it produces what is called heart disease. And to save 
my readers from imposition, I here state that there is no 
medicine that will do heart or any other disease any good. 

I have digressed a little from my subject. If any man or 
fraternity of men dispute what I have asserted, namely, that 
oxygen heats and causes the blood to circulate, I want him or 
them to answer the following questions: 

What benefits do we derive from breathing the common at- 
mosphere? 

How or why breathing the air gives us life? Why can we 
not live to exceed two minutes without breath? What warms 
the blood, or why does that fluid become cold when we cease 
to inhale air? Intelligent reader, you see that there is but 
one answer to all of these questions, and that is, that the heat 
the lungs absorb warms the blood and makes it circulate. 
This truth is self-evident to every intelligent mind. 

THE CAUSE OF ALL FEVERS. 

JSTow if it be established that caloric heat causes the blood 



13 



to circulate, is it not plain that fever is an accumulation of 
oxygen in the blood. Dr. Eberly says that there never has 
been a definition found for fever that bore the ordeal of criti- 
cism of the medical profession. I offer the above and defy 
the world to gainsay it. I will repeat that it is an accumu- 
lation of caloric heat in the blood. Medical writers claim 
that miasma is the principal agent in causing fever. And 
without stopping to controvert it, I tell the reader how far 
that is true. What is miasma or malaria? It is accidental 
or impure gas or gases that arises from impure and decaying 
vegetable matter. Every gas contains a substantive. And 
the agency these gases have in causing fever is simply this. 
Those gases mix with the common atmosphere, and are in- 
haled and infused in the blood and carried to all parts of the 
system. That is, these substantives are carried wherever the 
blood goes. When these substantives partly fill or obstruct the 
lymphatic glands, so that the oxygen or caloric heat cannot 
pass to the surface of the body, it collects in or accumulates 
in the blood, causing that fluid to flow with an accelerated 
velocity, so that said heat opens the pores and flows to the 
surface and enveloping the whole system with heat. To il- 
lustrate, we will take a case of intermitting, remitting or 
chills and fever. What are the symptoms? First, lassitude 
or weakness; second, chilliness is felt along each side of the 
vertebral column, (backbone) chilliness increases until the 
entire person is cold. What causes the exterior to become so 
cold? It is caused by this substantive spoken of a few sen- 
tences back, which is borne upon all impure or accidental gases, 
partially filling the lymphatic glands, so that the heat that is 
retained and calorified at the lungs cannot pass to the surface 
of the body. And the exterior is simply cold because the ca- 
loric heat cannot come to the surface. K~ow I ask what caus- 
es the intense heat that follows the chill or cold fit? The an- 
swer is plain. During the cold fit the heat was accumulating 
in the blood, and when that fluid becomes heat to a certain 
temperature it flows off through arteries and back through 
the veins so rapidly that the lymphatic glands are again 
opened and the heat flows out from the blood to the surface, 
and the whole person is enveloped in heat. While the lym- 
phatic glands were closed, the major portion of the fluids of 
the body were retained and that is the principal reason that 
sweating generally follows the running down of the fever. 



14 



It is now plain to every reader that the way we get rid of 
fever is that the blood flows or runs through the arteries and 
veins with such an accelerated velocity that the overplus of 
heat is thrown off, and it cools down to a natural and comfort- 
able temperature. These are the whole phenomena of fever. 
First, the cold fit (the cause of which we have seen). Second, 
the hot fit (nature's antidote to remove the cause). And third, 
the sweating process, by which the person is relieved of un- 
necessary fluids. And I assure my readers that the classifica- 
tion, division and subdivisions of fever made by medical men, 
have no existence in truth. Typhoid fever is a little lower 
grade than those remitting fevers. It sometimes approaches 
without any perceptible chill, but generally holds its victim 
much longer than higher grades of fever. 

The bilious fever that physicians talk of does not exist. 
That is, bile has no agency in generating fever except in yel- 
low fever, of which I propose to speak soon. A great many 
persons conclude that their stomach is foul and take a stimu- 
lating dose of medicine (very frequently calomel) to cleanse 
that important function, when it (the stomach) contracts to 
expel the calomel, and the lungs, by reason of which, expand 
and an overplus of oxygen is retained in these functions, so 
that the system heats up almost to fever heat. And when the 
stomach expels or throws out the calomel (or any other stimu- 
lant) the system cools down the liver and the biliary ducts 
close and the bile flows back to the stomach and is passed off, 
and the person thought that it was the dose that cleansed the 
stomach. But the fact is if the dose had not been taken the 
stomach would not have become foul. So much for cleans- 
ing the stomach. Winter or lung fever is caused by taking 
cold. When the cold from without drives the caloric heat to 
the interior of the body, the fluids curdle or become phlegm, 
and this matter obstructs the glands by which caloric heat 
accumulates in the blood (as in miasma) and that fluid throws 
the heat to the surface, heats the skin and is called fever. It 
has been called lung fever because a cough generally attends 
it, owing to the fact that more or less phlegm collects at or 
in the lungs. Therefore, we see that when phlegm obstructs 
the lymphatic glands and prevents the escapement of heat 
from the blood, oxygen accumulates in that life-giving 
fluid and causes lung or winter fever. 



15 



YELLOW FEVER. 

The disease of the south, that is called yellow fever, is not 
fever in the true sense of the term. 

The trouble is that the biliary ducts contract or collapse, 
and the bile flows from the stomach to the lungs and there 
mixes with the blood and makes it thicker, so that it cannot 
circulate, and the victim sinks and dies very much as do the 
victims of Asiatic cholera. I admit that febrile excitement 
attends the morbid action of the blood, and it is the bile in 
that circulating fluid that colors it yellow and that gives the 
skin a yellow tinge, and hence the name, yellow fever. 

Since what is called yellow fever became an epidemic in the 
southern cities of the Union, I wrote a card and sent or mailed 
it to the St. Louis Republican, requesting its publication, but 
I know not whether it (I do not take the paper) was ever pub- 
lished or not. My card stated in substance what is above 
written, and directing the following treatment: Let the pa- 
tient exercise as long as he can. If he becomes too weak to 
walk, let him lie clown in a well ventilated room. Allow but 
two or three attendants in the room at once, take no medi- 
cine of any kind, either as a cure or preventitive. If at any 
time after the patient lies down he wants to get up and walk, 
assist him to do so. Watch the extremities (hands and feet) 
and if they become cold, rub them with your dry hand until 
they become warm. If the blood is kept in full circulation 
they will recover. And friction — dry hand rubbing — and ex- 
ercise are the best means we can use to keep the blood in mo- 
tion. In treating fever cases in the north it is only necessary 
to give the patient all he or she wants, unless he should be 
simple enough to want medicine. I mean all that is wanted 
to eat or drink. And when the fever runs down they will 
soon be well. 

ASIATIC CHOLERA CHOLERA MORBUS — CHOLERA INFANTUM. 

The entire catalogue of malarial diseases are caused by the 
accumulation of caloric heat in the blood. 

We have seen, a few pages back, that when oxygen passed 
from the blood to the surface, it produced what we call fever. 
There is a set of glands connecting the arteries and veins with 
the bowels called lacteals. When the heat from the blood 
passes through these lacteal glands to the bowels, it heats 
these functions, over excites them and causes a cholera of some 



16 



grade. Asiatic is the highest grade of cholera known. That 
is, the heat is most intense and the stomach and howels are 
excited to their highest caj>acitj. In such cases the heat is 
withdrawn from the extremities — hands and feet — so that the 
blood is drawn away from the limbs and concentrated in the 
abdominal cavity. A large fraction of the heat is thrown off 
in the evacuation, if it were not it would burn the bowels to 
a crisp in a very few minutes. 

All that will do the patient any good is to rub the extremi- 
ties with the dry hands in order to keep the blood in the limbs 
until the lungs absorb a sufficiency of heat to keep that life- 
giving fluid in motion, How plain and easily understood 
the above statements are. And every reflecting mind must 
see at a glance that they are true. The reader can see how 
vague were the one hundred and one whims of learned phy- 
sicians relative to the cause of Asiatic cholera. I shall not at- 
tempt to enumerate them. All of the difference between 
Asiatic cholera and cholera morbus is that the latter is not of 
so high a grade, They come from the same cause and are 
similar in their effects. All we want to do is to let the stom- 
ach and bowels — and happily we cannot prevent them — free- 
ly evacuate their contents so the overplus of heat may be ex- 
pelled, and then put our persons in as comfortable a place as 
we can, until heat is calorified to warm the blood and give us 
an appetite for our food, and then Ave are all right. Cholera 
infantum is simply cholera of infants, and generally prevails 
during dentition or teething. The reason is that the gums 
are very porous, and when the teeth start through these little 
muscles they obstruct the passages of caloric heat and it flows 
either to the bowels, causing diarrhoea or flowing to the sur- 
face, and causing fever. And these are the reasons, affection- 
ate mother, that your babe while teething, has alternate fever 
and bowel complaint. And it is far worse than useless for 
you to give it any thing to check its bowels. If you never 
give it any medicine it will never become dangerously sick. If 
you could suddenly stop the running from the bowels, acute 
inflammation would set in, or when the heat is intense it would 
burn the bowels to a crisp, and your loved one could live but 
a short time. I shall not stop here to tell you of the hundreds 
of thousands of infants that have been murdered of calomel 
and morphia, or morphia alone, but warn you as you love 



IT 



your babe, to give it none of those things, neither permit any 
body else to. If its bowels run, let them run, it is nature's 
antidote to remove the cause. If its skin becomes hot, let it 
alone until it cools. Just nurse and take care of it, and when 
it gets its teeth it will be well. 

BLOODY FLUX. 

This disease has the same cause as that of the different 
grades of cholera except that when the lacteal glands connect- 
ing the arteries and rectum (the last division of the aliment- 
ary canal) become so expanded that blood passes through 
the lacteal to the bowel and has to be passed. The disease is 
not dangerous, although it makes its victim quite sick during 
the time it continues. All that is necessary to do is to let it 
alone. And when the blood ceases to pass off or to be passed, 
and the overplus of heat passes off the patient will soon be 
well. 

SCARLATINA. 

I had forgotten to speak of scarlet fever, scarlet rash, etc. 
Scarlet fever comes like any other fever. The cuticle (outside 
skin) becomes more or less obstructed so that the heat is more 
or less- retained between the layers of the skin, causing the 
outside to become red, and that is the reason it is called scar- 
let fever. All of the treatment it wants is to let it alone. 
Some doctors, I believe, say it is contagious, but it is not so. 

I believe that I have briefly noticed about all of the mias- 
matic diseases that have a real existence. Medical writers 
write of many diseases that have no existence. Malar- 
ial diseases are all caused by caloric heat in the blood. And 
the symptoms are all nature's antidote to remove their cause. 

For example, when th e accumulated heat passes through 
the lymphatic glands to the surface, it produces what we call 
fever. When the said heat runs through the lacteal glands to 
the bowels, it causes a cholera of some grade. And when the 
glands connecting the rectum with the arteries and veins be- 
come a little more widely expanded, blood passes through them 
into the last division of the alimentary canal and it is called 
a bloody flux. And none of those diseases are dangerous if 
you will neither give nor take those horrible doses generally 
given to cure them. The medicines kill in every fatal case. 
There may possibly be a few fatal cases of yellow fever in the 
south where they do not get medicine, but it is more than 



18 



probable that when that disease prevails as an epidemic, 
people keep themselves at all times under the influence of 
some poisonous drug used as a preventitive. And we know 
by the nature of the disease that all narcotics predispose the 
system to take on the malady. As has been said before, the 
bile mixes with the blood and makes that fluid too thick to 
circulate. And it is the blood coagulating in the veins, be- 
coming putrid and generating a putrid gas that causes the 
swelling noticed in the victims of yellow fever which is the 
first symptom of that dreadful disease. 

Typhoid is the grade of fever most frequently made fatal in 
the north, because it holds its victim the longest and is con- 
sequently doctored the most, or the longest time. 

For the benefit of the reader I will describe a case and the 
general treatment of typhoid fever. I will assume that it is a 
beloved minister and highly esteemed for his works ' sake. The 
week before communion, he expects a big congregation and 
he makes extra efforts to prepare an acceptable sermon. Du- 
ring Thursday he remains in his study all day. He awakes 
on Friday morning with his head aching severely. He con- 
cludes that he has taken cold and keeps his room all day dur- 
ing Friday, taking care of himself. When Saturday comes he 
is no better. His pulpit is filled by a neighboring minister, 
and he remains at home. On the next Monday morning, the 
physician (a member of his spiritual flock, perhaps) is called 
in. The beloved physician questions his patient, feels his 
pulse and pronounces it a case of typhoid fever/ Of course he 
must go to work to break it. And he certainly is an educa- 
ted and a well read doctor, and understands his business. And 
in order that his Rev. patient shall have every thing done for 
him that can be, he calls to memory the treatment prescribed 
by the standard medical authors of the day. Dr. Dickson 
prescribes morphia in cases of fever, and men know or think 
that Quinea will break a fever. 

In the first place he gives his patient a heavy dose of mor- 
phia. He leaves about six heavy doses of quinine, to be giv- 
en between that time and the next morning. The sickening 
quinea has contracted the stomach so that the lungs have ex- 
panded and calorified an overplus of heat, and heat the blood 
so that when his medical highness calls the next morning, he 
finds his patient laboring under a high grade of febrile ex- 
citement. He readily perceives that the minister is growing 



19 



worse. What can be done? Evidently he must have a big- 
ger dose of morphia to check the beating of his pulse. Calo- 
mel has gone almost out of use but he deems it prudent to 
give a dose of the double Cook's pills (two-thirds calomel and 
the other third rhubarb) every alternate day, to keep his bow- 
els open. The above described treatment was continued dur- 
ing eighteen days. The doctor calling and leaving medicine 
every day and pronouncing it the most obstinate case of lever 
that he had ever treated. 

At the end of the time above named, the stomach is found to 
be hopelessly torpid. That is it will not expand or go back to 
its proper shape so as to receive and digest food. And the lungs 
have collapsed so that they will calorify no more heat. And 
on examination of the interior of the mouth he is found to be 
badly salivated. On the nineteenth day it is ascertained that 
the fever is broken. Great rejoicing follows the announce- 
ment. The physician's skill is highly praised. But during 
the afternoon of said day the patient is found to be sinking 
into unconsciousness. Wine and brandy are poured down the 
dying man to stimulate him, but all in vain. His stomach 
has not vitality enough left in it to force the spirit through 
the thoracic duct to the lungs, and these functions are hopeless- 
ly destroyed by the use of morphia. In fact he is murdered. 
His extremities (hands and feet) become cold and a few spas- 
modic gasps for breath closes the scene. The news goes out 
that he is dead. He was a popular minister, and every res- 
pect is shown him that can be. The inhabitants of the town 
and many from the country attend his funeral. 

When his remains are decently interred, the people return 
to their homes and the widow, with her helpless orphans, go 
to their home of solitude, of poignant anguish, of which no i 
person can have any just conception, but those who have 
been similarly bereft. 

The next thing known to the public is his obituary notice, 
those who read are then informed that God in his mysterious 
providence has taken the minister in the midst of his useful- 
ness. The doctor writes the said notice and adds that it was 
certain that God had called for the preacher, and it was im- 
possible to save him, because everything was done for 
him that could be done. Now kind reader I ask 
you to look back and see how many such incidents you 
have seen during your life. The question very naturally 



20 



is asked, was this beloved physician well acquainted 
with all of the sciences necessary to make him a scientific and 
thorough doctor? Did he not know that keeping the patient 
under the influence of quinea so long would produce febrile 
excitement? Did he not know that the sickening quinea 
would contract the stomach and cause the lungs to expand 
and calorify more heat, which, indeed, is what makes a stimu- 
lant? Did he not know that morphia would collapse the air 
cells of the lungs and stop the generationg of heat sos that 
life would soon be extinct if they did not soon open again ? I 
affirm that if the beloved physician did not know these things 
he was a criminal to undertake to practice physic. And if 
he did know them he was a murderer in the first degree and 
ought to be dealt with as such. 

Now, indulgent reader, we have this to say of the case. That 
if the minister had walked out and took the air when he com- 
menced to take care of himself, he would not have been sick. 
Or if he had let the doctor and his medicine alone he would 
have become as well as usual the next week. That it 
was the continuous doses of quinea that caused all of the fever 
he had. And that G-od had no more to do with his murder 
than he had with the death ot Abel, or of the murder of Fisk 
by Stokes some years ago, or any other foul homicide with 
which the reading public are acquainted. Grod has forbidden us 
to kill one another, and I affirm that he never has and never 
will kill one of his creatures. He is too wise and consistent 
to do what he has commanded us not to do. 

So, friendly reader, when you have read of any person dying 
of fever, you may know assuredly that he died of medicine. 
We have no right to say that any person died of fever unless 
it is shown upon a post mortem examination that the arteries 
and veins are so badly crisped by heat that they will neither 
contract nor expand. They die on account of those poison- 
ous doses ignorantly or knavishiy given to break these fevers. 
I have just read an editorial taken from the New Orleans 
Democrat, wherein the editor of that learnedly and ably edi- 
ted sheet thinks it mysteriously strange that there are not as 
many deaths in the parts of the city inhabited by the poor and 
where filth is left in their streets, no sanitary regulations at- 
tended to, and last but not least, they have no doctors nor 
nurses, and the latter, kind editor, is the reason of the state of 



21 



things of which you speak. It is the medicine that kills your 
people. 

CHAPTEK II. 

PHLEGMATIC DISEASES. 

All diseases which are caused by the taking of cold, are 
what we call phlegmatic diseases. 

It might be well to state here that I am not following any 
medical writer in the classification of human maladies. That 
the reader may the better understand me, I will describe the 
phenomena of taking cold. We have seen that all animal 
heat is generated at the lungs. And that the said heat was 
carried all through the system by the blood. The same calor- 
ic heat flows to the surface of the body, and keeps the exterior 
warm. Now when the cold air blowing upon our persons, 
gets the ascendancy, and drives the heat to the interior of the 
body, the fluids become curdled and turn to phlegm. The 
most common causes of taking cold are the changing of the 
thicker for thinner clothing. Generally the first symptoms 
of taking cold are the nasal ducts become obstructed, and 
sneezing follows, which is nature's antidote to free these 
glands. The habiliments we wear, should be of a uniform 
thickness. We should be very careful at the approach of 
spring not to lay aside our winter garments too soon. We 
must use some judgment in taking care of our physical bodies. 
Nature is a strict accountant, and if we violate her laws we 
must pay the penalty. And we need not hope to be forgiven 
for those sins against nature until we cease to commit them. 

Yet she (nature) is kind enough to restore the injured parts 
to health if we cease the abuse. In common colds I have no 
treatment to prescribe, nor shall I stop to criticise the pre- 
scriptions of others. I only say to let the patient go about his 
or her business as though they were well and they will the 
sooner be so. 

CROUP. 

This disease is sometimes called bold hives, and mostly con- 
fined to children, from one to six years old. The disease of 
croup is pleghm collecting in the glottis (wind-pipe) and pre- 
venting the air from passing to the lungs. Emetics are given 
by the doctors on some occasions. But the people would have 
better health if there was never a vomit given. The best 



22 



treatment is to put the little sufferer in a warm bath. The 
warm water opens the lymphatic glands and causes the 
phlegm to now to the surface, and will almost invariably give 
relief. 

SCIATIC PAINS INFLAMMATORY RHEUMATISM LUMBAGO, ETC. 

In order to be brief, I will say that if we could have a free 
and full circulation of the blood, we would very seldom, if ever, 
have a pain. The above diseases come of the same cause and 
are only a little different in their effect. The glands at the 
joints (where rheumatism invariably comes) become obstruc- 
ted of phlegm, and they so press upon the veins that the ven- 
ous blood is obstructed in its passage to the lungs, and causes 
indeed, a derangement in the circulation of the arterial blood. 
The only difference between sciatic and inflammatory rheuma- 
tism is that in the former, there is not coagulation enough to 
cause any swelling, while in the latter, the clotted blood gen- 
erates a gas that swells the muscles and the coagulation float's 
off and the cause is removed and the effect ceases . 

TREATMENT . 

The application of artificial heat and dry hand rubbing are 
all that will do any permanent good. In cases of rheumatism, 
whenever a vigorous circulation of the blood through the 
joints affected is obtained, it will give immediate relief. 

CONSUMPTION. 

This is a phlegmatic disease. Air is the life of the lungs, 
as much as blood is the life of the muscles. We have seen in 
a previous chapter, that the chyloric fluid, which is extracted 
from the food we eat, by the process of digestion in the stom- 
ach, passes through the ducts provided by nature for that pur- 
pose, to the lungs, there to be turned to blood. 

If from any cause the lungs fail to calorify a sufficient 
quantity of oxygen to turn the said fluid to pure arterial blood, 
it becomes phlegm, and closes or obstructs the lungs. I will 
repeat that the cause of consumption is that the blood-making 
material or material of which blood is made, is turned to 
phlegm. The reason that this fluid becomes phlegm instead 
of blood is that the lungs fail to calorify a sufficient quantity 
of oxygen to turn the chyle from the stomach to arterial 
blood, and the nitrogen congeals or freezes (the same as a re- 
frigerator) and it becomes phlegm. 



23 



When phlegm fills the air cells of the lungs and it remains 
for an indefinite length of time, they begin to rot or suppurate 
as medical men term it, and the lungs consume or | rot until 
they will not make blood enough to keep the victim or pa- 
tient alive. This is one of the reasons why consumptive patients 
become so pale and weak. And the cough that attends the 
disease is nature's effort to free the lungs from injurious ob- 
structions. I think it unnecessary to write any more upon 
the cause and general progress of consumption. 

TREATMENT. 

Among the innumerable cures for consumption advertised in 
newspapers and medical almanacs, there is not one but what 
does more harm than good. We have seen in a previous chap- 
ter that when any indigestible matter was taken into the 
stomach that that function contracted to expel the said matter 
and this contraction gives room for the lungs to expand and 
let go the phlegm that obstructed the air cells of these func- 
tions. Calomel, quinea, tartar emetic and ipecac are all very 
powerful expectorants. But these doses invariably do the 
stomach far more injury than they benefit the lungs. I have 
read newspaper accounts of cures of consumption by inhaling 
the smoke from burning arsenic, and admit that the inhal- 
ing of such gas would expand the air cells of the lungs very 
considerably without seriously injuring the stomach, but I 
would prefer inhaling the gas from burning resin. It is 
generally known that the inhabitants of countries where pine 
timber predominates are generally free from consumption. 
And the reason is plain. The substance of the pine has a very 
expansive effect upon the lungs without injuring any other 
function of the human system. 

If we could know just how much heat the lungs would ab- 
sorb, and eat just what food it would require to make what 
chyloric fluid the heat at the lungs would turn to arterial 
blood, the consumptive patient might profit by dieting. But 
the most healthful exercise is walking. And if patients 
should walk lively enough to tire themselves some it is all 
the better. 

We all know that physical exertion makes us breathe quick- 
er and deeper, and the reason is that we waste caloric 
heat and the lungs work more briskly to restore the wasted 
heat. 



24 



And if a complete circulation of air through all parts of 
the lungs is continuous, consumption will cease to exist. And 
if the points or extreme ends of the lungs have commenced 
to supprate, they will healup. If patients are too weak to walk, 
the next best exercise is on horse-back. It was a physical 
calamity to our people, when the buggy was exchanged for 
the saddle. 

In order to be completely understood, I will repeat a part 
of what has been written, that consumption is caused by the 
lungs being or becoming obstructed of phlegm. And it is 
equally true that nature is all of the time working to relieve 
any and all affected parts. And all you can do to assist na- 
ture is to eat, sleep, drink and exercise in accordance with her 
laws. 

I will here digress enough from my subject to advise all 
mechanics who do their work in an incumbent position, to 
take more or less exercise in the open air, during the morning 
before commencing, and in the afternoon, after quitting their 
work. 

DIPHTHERIA. 

The above named disease should have been noticed before, 
but I had forgotten it. 

The cause of diphtheria is the clotting up of the venous blood 
about the roots of the tongue and in the lower jaw. The cir- 
culation is weaker in the under-jaw than any other part of the 
human body. This can be known by the lumps that can be 
felt in the interior of the under jaw bone. 

It the clotted blood generate a sufficient quantity of gas to 
swell the muscles so that the clotted blood can be floated 
away, the patient is quickly relieved. But if the muscles and 
veins fail to swell, the putrid blood imparts putrefaction to 
the muscles and death to the patient is the consequence. But 
if patients were let alone there would seldom if ever be a fatal 
case of diphtheria. Coagulated or clotted blood in the veins 
seldom if ever fails to generate a sufficient quantity of gas to 
swell the same, so that the coagulation is floated off and is 
dissolved and purified by the circulating blood. And when 
this is done, the cause is removed and the effect ceases. And 
I would advise all persons who are suffering of diphtheria and 
the immediate relatives and friends of such, not to be 
alarmed if the parts effected swell, because swelling is na- 



25 



ture's antidote to remove the cause. All that is necessary to 
do is to give the patients all they want to eat and drink and 
keep them comfortable. 

I should feel guilty of a sin of omission if I failed to warn 
the reader not to allow any man to burn their loved ones to 
death with caustic. Thousands have been murdered by cau- 
terizing. 

PHLEGMASIA DOLENS OR MILK LEG. 

The above is not a phlegmatic disease — as its name implies 
— but is caused by a want of circulation in the inferior ex- 
tremities. American ladies take too little exercise just before 
and soon after confinement. It is generally known that the 
circulation of the blood is less feeble during gestation or preg- 
nancy than at any other time. It is equally true that a mor- 
bid or depressed action of the system follows parturition or 
child-birth. And it is too often true that the mother is not 
allowed to have such food as she craves or is in the habit of 
eating, and is kept in bed longer than there is any use of, and 
all of these abuses combined cause milk leg. American, as 
well as all other ladies, should recollect that the Hebrew or 
Jewish women went to the synagogue or temple with their 
male children the eighth day after their birth. And every 
lady, both before and after confinement, should take all the 
exercise they consistently can. 

The cause of milk leg is that the venous blood coagulates 
or clots between the foot and knee, generally the ankle, and 
putrifies the veins and muscles until they erupt — break out as 
it is generally called — and a colorless matter is emitted ac- 
companied with a very disagreeable soreness and itching. 
When these eruptions proceed from the arteries, scrofula, 
small animals in the blood, are the cause. I prescribe no 
cures except what unassisted nature furnishes; but I will say 
to ladies, that if they will take sufficient exercise before and 
soon after confinement milk leg will never come. 

SCROFULA. 

Animalcula, small animals in the blood, are the cause of all 
eruptions of the skin, such as erysipelas, teter, salt rheum, etc. 
Nature gives us a small portion of these animals, enough at 
]east to devour what matter was in the blood that is too 
coarse to be expelled through the glands. And if we were 
content to live upon pure vegetable food we would never have 



scrofulous diseases. It was first called the king's evil, so 
named when the kings of Europe ate more farinaceous or oily 
food than their subjects could afford. When these little ani- 
mals collect in the arteries so as to obstruct the circulation of 
the blood, it coagulates, becomes putrid, rots the skin through 
and emits a colorless matter; and the only cure for scrofula is 
to quit the use of animal food. Too much butter is as bad as 
pig oil. 

When these animals become so numerous in the arteries 
that they pass through the capillaries to the veins, thence to 
the lungs, they lill the air cells of these functions and cause 
what is called pulmonary or galloping consumption. 

CHAPTER III. 

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 

By contagious diseases I mean those that are caught by go- 
ing into close contact w T ith those who have them. The most 
prominent of these ailments are known by the following 
names: Mumps, whooping cough, measles, and smallpox. 

MUMPS. 

This disease is known by a continuous swelling of the under 
jaw, accompanied sometimes with inflammation. The cause is 
a virus that mixes with the venous blood and retards circula- 
tion. The circulation is weaker in the under jaw than any 
other part or member of the body, and the reason the disease 
falls, as it is called, to the testicles, is that the next weakest 
members are those organs. And inasmuch as this disease is 
known by the swelling of these parts, patients need not be 
alarmed by the size to which these parts may swell. We have 
seen in a previous chapter that coagulum in the veins w T as the 
cause of all oedema, and that swelling was nature's antidote to 
remove the cause, consequently the larger those members be- 
come by swelling the sooner the cause will be removed. On ac- 
count of ignorance or an uncontrollable propensity on the part 
of physicians to use the knife, there has been many castrations 
without a shadow of necessity. My advice in such cases is 
simply to do nothing but to go about your business as though 
you was well and you will the sooner be so. 

WHOOPING COUGH. 

This ailment is caused by a virus which collapses or closes 
the air cells of the lungs, so that these functions cannot 



27 



calorify enough heat to turn the chyle from the stomach to 
pure arterial blood, and the chyle becomes phlegm and has to 
be coughed up. To cough is an involuntary act of the lungs 
to free their cells of some injurious matter. During the 
paroxysms of coughing the glottis becomes obstructed with 
phlegm, and when the patient inhales air it causes a shrill 
hissing sound, and hence the name. 

Exercise in the open air, plenty of sleep, and all the food 
and drink the patient wants, is all that need be clone. 

MEASLES. 

This disease approaches with violent headache and fever, 
and the reason is that the virus, measles, fill or obstruct the 
lymphatic glands, and prevent the escapement of caloric heat, 
and oxygen accumulates in the blood and causes fever. This 
febrile excitement continues until the virus comes between 
the layers (dermis and epidermis) of the skin. This is what 
is generally called the breaking out of the measles. The ex- 
ternal skin sometimes smells some on account of small parti- 
cles of coagulum. The taking of cold before the virus is 
completely expelled is attended with some evil consequences. 
In such cases the patient should be kept a little warmer until 
the measles come out again. 

SMALL POX. 

This contagious disease differs from all of those previously 
named, in that the contagion consists of small particles 
instead of virus. Medical writers speak of two kinds of 
small pox, namely, confluent and varioloid. In the former 
division the pox are more numerous, and in the latter more 
various and not so many pox. It is known by all persons 
who have any acquaintance with the disease, that the con- 
tagion cannot be taken one from another until the patient has 
become convalescent, or when the pox or sores begin to dry 
up, and as the corruption of these pox is evaporated or dries 
there are small particles of matter borne off in and held in 
solution in the atmosphere. And when persons approach a 
case of small pox at the stage of the disease above described, 
they inhale these particles, and they are carried in the blood 
to all parts of the system, and whenever one of these parti- 
cles stops it causes a pox to come. It festers the same, and 
for the same reason that corruption gathers round a thorn 
driven into the muscle. And the intense febrile excitement 



that precedes the coming of the particles or breaking out of 
the small pox is caused by the internal swelling around these 
small particles above referred to. The lymphatic glands are 
obstructed and the escapement of caloric heat is prevented, 
and oxygen accumulates in the blood, as in all other cases of 
fever. And when the cause is removed the effect ceases. 

I will repeat that the cause of small pox is the inhaling of 
these small particles of matter that are borne off from cases 
when the sores begin to dry. 

If the above brief statements are correct, it is plain to all 
readers that there can nothing be done in cases of small pox 
that will do the patient any good, except to keep him as com- 
fortable as he can be made. Give him as much water 'as he 
wants, and when he is convalescent do not give him too much 
to eat. 

ITCH. 

This malady is caused by a live insect that crawls upon the 
person and eats through the external or outside layer of 
the skin, and there generates and increases until the person 
is covered with them. 

A plentiful application of red precipitate or anguintum 
will kill the insect, so you need not go to the drug store 
unless you want to kill something. 

LEPROSY. 

The above named disease is as certainly caused by a live 
insect as the itch. In proof of my assertion I would argue 
the case a little more voluminously did I not suppose that 
about all who read this book would have a Bible. Therefore 
I will only refer the reader to the 13th and 14th chapters of 
Leviticus. If he will carefully read these chapters he will 
see what Moses directed to do in such cases. He will know 
that nothing but an insect could inhabit or live in the wall 
of a house. And when the washing of the wall did not re- 
move the leprosy the house was to be torn down, in order (we 
suppose) that the former and latter rains might kill the in- 
sects. And when any person was thought to be infected 
with leprosy he was ordered by the priest to shut himself in 
doors during seven days, and to wash himself each day, and 
if no sign of leprosy was seen at the end of said time the 
inspected person was to wash his clothes and go free. 

I think it unnecessary to write more to prove to the reader 



29 



that the leprosy of Palestine and of California is an insect 
that exists in countries where frost never comes and, during a 
portion of the year no rain tails. 

For the cure of leprosy I will refer all readers to the 5th 
chapter of II Kings. If the kind reader will turn to and 
read the said chapter he will see what Elisha told ISTaaman, 
the Syrian, to do. I am aware that some of the Jews thought 
the leprosy to be incurable, except by the miraculous or 
supernatural interposition of Deity, but if the reader will 
examine the New Testament he will see that whenever the 
Lord of Glory cured a case of leprosy, He commanded the 
patient not to tell that He had done it, but to go and show 
himself to the priest and to offer what Moses commanded in 
such cases as a testimony to their efficacy. 

I think if Naaman had washed or bathed in the rivers of 
Damascus, as he did in Jordan, that it would have killed the 
insects that devoured his skin. If it should appear that the 
lascife that holds the skin to the muscles had been eat by the 
insects, (after the patient has bathed fifteen or twenty minutes 
each day for seven consecutive days) the best assistance we 
can offer nature is to wrap the patient in linen wet in soft 
water, warmed to about eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and 
enough covering to keep the patient comfortably warm. 
Where the muscles are exposed, (left naked) the fluids are 
evaporated, and the blood cannot circulate, and the muscles 
become putrid or mortify, and in that case the patient cannot 
live. But if the patient should bleed enough to envelop the 
system with coagulum the above treatment must not be done. 
The coagulated blood furnishes the best protection the mus- 
cles can have, except the skin. Maturation will soon loosen 
the clotted blood and the matter dry and form a scab, which 
protects the muscle until the natural skin grows. The above 
treatment is correct in fresh cuts, unless they are broad and 
deep enough to require stitching or drawn and held together 
by adhesive plaster. All that is -necessary to do is to bind up 
the wound in the blood and let the bandage remain until it 
heals up. There have been many chronic sores made by the 
application of healing salves. 

BURNS AND SCALDS. 

Burns and scalds, no odds if ever so deep, need only to be 



so 



wrapped in dry cloths, as nature furnishes a fine membranous 
scarf that protects the muscle until the skin grows. 

COLIC. 

Medical writers write of several kinds of colic. But I as- 
sure the reader that there is but one case of the very painful 
disease, and that is gas generated in the stomach. It may be 
animal or vegetable, or both. We take food into the stomach, 
and if it does not digest in a suitable length of time, it com- 
mences to putrify, and generates a putrid gas that sometimes 
fills the alimentary canal, and then we have severe pain in 
the stomach and bowels. To illustrate, I would say that it 
is a vegetable gas that raises our bread, and it is the same 
kind of gas that gives us the colic when we eat vegetable 
food. And if we eat animal food and it does not digest at 
the proper time, it generates an animal gas. You are aware 
that the dead carcass of any animal, during warm weather, 
will smell and burst. Now it is evident that it was an ani- 
mal gas that bursted the carcass. When the valve at the 
junction of the descending colon with the rectum becomes 
closed, so that the gas cannot pass off, the pain is very severe. 
Children who eat pieces between their regular meals are most 
subject to colic. The reason is that they take food before 
that previously eaten has had time to digest, and it becomes 
putrid, and gas above referred to is generated. Nature in 
her own good time will give relief if left alone. 

HYDROPHOBIA . 

The meaning of hydrophobia is hatred of water, or in- 
ability to swallow fluid of any kind. All of the history I 
have ever had favors the conclusion that it invariably starts 
among the canine species. I have never seen a case of 
hydrophobia in any animal, and am left to conjecture some 
things concerning it. In all of the diseases before spoken of 
I have been able to write with authority and affirm with au- 
thority, and not as the scribes who have written upon the 
pathology of human as well as animal diseases before me. 
The most rational conclusion to which we are led is that the 
water ducts, which take up the fluid and conduct it to all 
parts of the body, become closed, and the stomach refuses to 
receive any more fluid of any kind. Water is as necessary in 
blood making as any other material, and without it we can 
live but a short time. It appears, however, that what fluid 



remains in the carcass of a rabid dog flows to the mouth, and 
that the virus poison is in the saliva" It is equally true that 
but little of this poison can be inserted by the tusk of the 
dog at one bite. 

POISONOUS REPTILES. 

The poison in all snakes and reptiles consists in the cold or 
chilliness of the fluid that is thrown into the blood when the 
fang of the snake is thrown into the muscle. And what 
makes it a poison is that it cools the blood and prevents the 
circulation. And the reason the muscle swells at and near 
the bite is that the blood coagulates, and generates the gas 
that swells the muscles. We have seen in a previous chapter 
that caloric heat causes the blood to circulate, and I will here 
inform the reader that the venom of the poisonous snake 
cools the blood and counteracts the oxygen. 

The reader is aware that various cures are prescribed for 
snake bites, prominent among which is the drinking abund- 
antly of spirituous liquors. When we drink fermented 
liquor the spirit of the same flows to the lun^gs, mixes with 
the blood, and causes it to flow with accelerated velocity, and 
that is all of the good it can do in the case of a snake bite. 

It is vefy evident that the poison is taken through the 
entire system as quickly as the blood can take it, and it is 
equally true that the poison must be thrown out through the 
lymphatic glands before the blood can be clear of the venom. 
Therefore, if I were bitten by a poisonous snake I would 
start and walk (as soon as I had killed the reptile) so as to 
keep the blood in motion. If the muscle swells at and near 
the bite, let it swell. It is nature's antidote to remove the 
cause. We may apply drugs and substantives to kill insects 
and animals that trouble us, but we had as well try to create 
a world as to cure a disease. 

CANCER. 

The eating cancer generally erupts or makes its first ap- 
pearance in some part of the face. It is caused by a slight 
bruise. The mass or lump is small at first, but it continues 
to grow. And what causes the mass is that the circulation 
is obstructed, or, indeed, almost excluded, so that it will not 
unite with the original muscle. If the blood was entirely 
excluded from the cancerous lump, the muscle would rot 
around it, and it would drop out as a thorn or splinter. But 



32 



there is blood enough passes into it to keep it growing, and 
it grows and spreads, to the destruction of the muscle around 
it. And that is the reason why it proves fatal. There are 
two ways of extracting cancers. They are sometimes cut out 
and a portion of skin flayed from some other part of the 
body, and bound to the place from which the cancer was re- 
moved, while the warm blood is in it, and it kindly heals to 
the place with but little trouble. 

But the easiest, and as quick a plan, is to apply a heavy 
narcotic, A lye poultice or lunar caustic will contract the 
muscle around the cancer in from twenty-four to sixty hours. 
I have known lunar caustic to be kept on a cancer until the 
muscle rotted around it. The caustic contracted the muscle so 
closely that the blood w r as excluded, and the muscle rotted. 
This was unnecessary, as the mere contracting of the muscle 
would leave the cancer so loose that it could be drawn out. 
My older readers are aware that we sometimes apply a lye 
poultice to draw a thorn or splinter out of the muscle that 
has been accidentally driven there. But the poultice does not 
draw any more than any other inert material, it simply con- 
tracts the muscle so that the thorn or splinter drops from the 
place where it was imbedded in the muscle. Aicd the worst 
of cancers may be extracted in the same way; that is, they 
will not drop from where they are imbedded, but by applying 
lye or caustic during the time specified the cancer can be drawn 
out with a pair of tweezers, or any instrument with which 
you can hold it. 

BLISTERING. 

While I am speaking of drawing I will say that a blister 
is never drawn, as it is generally called. They are simply 
burned. When cantharicles (Spanish flies) are applied to the 
skin it operates as a non-conductor of heat, and the caloric 
is confined to the skin and simply burns the blister. And it 
is true of ground mustard, or any other non-conductor of 
heat. If you would lay a little raw cotton on your naked 
skin and burn it it would make just such a blister. I have 
known physicians to try to burn blisters on patients whose 
lungs they had destroyed when there was not enough heat to 
burn the outside layer of the skin. I hope, however, that all 
of my readers will know too much to blister themselves or 
any other person. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DISEASES OF HORSES, CATTLE, SHEEP AND SWINE. 
COLIC IN HORSES. 

The above named is the most common among horses, 
The cause is simply gas in the stomach, and what causes gas 
in the stomach is undigested food. When the horse's food 
lays in the stomach too long it generates a vegetable gas* 
which fills the alimentary canal to the junction of the 
descending colon with the rectum, on account of the valve at 
said junction closing, and the bowels swell, and the liorse is 
in great pain. All persons who drive horses are aware that a 
change of food is apt to colic them. The reason is that the 
stomach does not digest it as readily as that which it is in 
the habit of doing. 

The best thing, and in fact all we can do, is to turn the 
horse loose and let him roll as much as he will, because there 
is some water in every stomach, and in the act of rolling the 
animal washes the undigested matter from the walls of the 
stomacli and the said matter passes ofT, and the generation of 
gas ceases and the liorse gets well. 

BOTTS. 

Post-mortem examinations have proved two facts, namely: 
first, that the stomach of every horse contains more or less of 
these insects; and second, that these insects never eat the 
stomach of the horse while he lives. The Grod of nature has 
certainly furnished, a number of botts for the purpose of de- 
vouring the indigestible matter which, if left in the stomach, 
would be injurious to the animal. 

EPIZOOTIC. 

This disease is certainly caused by an obstruction or weak- 
ness of the lungs. We have seen, in a previous chapter, that 
when the lungs do not retain a sufficient quantity of caloric 
heat to turn the chyle from the stomach to arterial blood, the 
said chyle is chilled by the nitrogen, and becomes phlegm. 
Every person who ever went near a horse while the animal 
was suffering with epizootic (horse epidemic) is aware that 
his breathing was obstructed, and that a rattling sound was 



heard In his lungs, with more or less coughing. I ain not 
aware that any horses died in the county of my residence of 
the disease, owing. I think, to the fact that the people did not 
think the malady severe enough to require doctoring. It is 
evident that the disease came as a natural consequence of the 
tacts already stated, and it is equally true that every other 
function sympathized with the lungs to assist these functions 
to throw off the malady or weakness that obstructed them, 
£ud as soon as his lungs were clear of phlegm the horse was 
well. I was here in the American desert, and had no oppor- 
tunity of knowing what was prescribed generally for the 
epizootic, nor am I inclined to indulge in speculations and 
vague opinions; but I have no doubt that if horse owners 
should treat their horses as they did at the time the horse 
epidemic was in its worst stage, that about as many horses 
would die now as did there and then. Men are slow to see 
the absurdity of supposing that such treatment as would 
make a well animal sick would make him well if sick. All 
the horse wanted, aside from general treatment, was a little 
rest. He was weak because all of the chyle that was turned 
to phlegm deprived him of that much blood. 

SPAVIX, EmOBOSI, STRFNGHALT, ETC. 

The location of spavin in horses is so well understood that 
[ need not tell where it is located. There are two kinds of 
spavin known to horse owners. The blood spavin is simply 
the blood coagulating in the veins in the front part of the 
hind legs of the horse. "We have seen that clotted blood in- 
variably causes swelling. And the afflicted animal is always 
weak in these joints, when first started, after standing an in- 
definite length of time, and until he gets up a circulation by 
exercise. The bone spavin is simply the ligaments in the 
same locality becoming bone. Ligament is a latin word, and 
means the hard muscle. And these hard and white muscles 
require the blood to circulate through them the same as all 
other muscles. 

Men pretend to cure the spavin, but it is a deception (as 
well as all other cures) of quack horse doctors and jockies. 
Spirits of turpentine, and some other highly exciting liquids, 
when poured upon the horse, by meeting with the caloric heat 
on the surface of the skin, burn the same, and is so exciting 



35 



that it opens the glands so widely that the gas escapes, and 
the swelling goes partly down and the spavin is pronounced 
cured. But the trouble is that the cause is not removed, and 
the coagulum remains in the ligament, and the joint becomes 
sorer than it was before. Coagulated blood in 'the veins in- 
variably generates an animal gas, the effect of which is to 
expand the veins, and what blood does float through the 
veins carries off the clotted blood and purines it. So you 
see, kind reader, that in all external applications (as well as 
internal dosing) we do no good but much harm. 

FOUNDER. 

It is presumed that all men know that founder is stiffnes s 
in the joints of the limbs of the horse. It is an egregious 
mistake to suppose that immoderate exercise generates or in - 
creases animal heat. Exercise increases the velocity of the 
blood (makes it circulate faster) and that throws the caloric 
heat to the surface of the animal, makes it appear warmer, 
but when the exterior becomes so warm, the interior is de- 
prived of just that much heat. And that is the reason that 
the horse sometimes becomes foundered when you give him 
grain or water, or both, when he is (thought to be) very 
warm. One great blessing in nature is, that when one of the 
animal functions is abused, that all others sympathize with 
it. And the reason that stiffness in the joints of the limbs 
follows the above named treatment is that the blood and 
caloric heat are withdrawn from the limbs, and the joint oil 
becomes cold, and that impairs its lubricating properties. 
And this stiffness cannot be removed until the lungs inhale a 
sufficient quantity of caloric heat to drive the warm blood 
back to the limbs of the horse and warm the joint oil, so as 
to make the joints supple again. Colt founder is simply 
caused by the animal getting too much grain, that is, more 
than it is in the habit of eating, and a similar result follows 
to that above described. And the reason that the hoof some- 
times comes off is that the circulation is so long withheld 
that the ligaments rot off. 

(xLANDERS. 

The meaning of the above disease is diseased glands. 
These concave tubes become so obstructed that the impure 
matter becomes putrid, and hence the offensive odor that is 



36 



inhaled when we approach a horse suffering with the glanders. 
The impure gas that passes Irom the glands of such diseased 
horses poisons the glands of such other animals as inhale it. 
and consequently it is partially contagious. I had forgotten 
to say that ringbone was an ossification of the ligament near 
the upper edge of the fore foot. Nothing but the return of 
the blood to the said bone will do any good; and nature must 
do that if it is ever done. 

CATTLE. 

The growing of cattle being the most profitable of any 
branch of husbandry, I will, for general treatment, refer the 
reader to Jacob. By reading the history of the Patriarch, he 
will find that the son of Isaac was very diligent in the, care 
of his cattle. To the same effect is Solomon when he says. 
" Look w r ell to thy flocks and herds, for thou knowest nor 
which will prosper." The diseases of cattle are like those of 
all other animals (as well as men ), the less we doctor the 
better. The ox typhus, or cattle fever, is caused by an ac- 
cumulation of caloric heat in the blood. And the only way 
for the bovine to get rid of such heat is for it to pass out 
through the lymphatic glands. All you can do to benefit the 
ox is to give him plenty of pure water, and when the heat 
runs down he will soon be well. 

TEXAN CATTLE. 

The people of Nebraska were so confirmed in the opinion 
that the Texan cattle were infected with a contagious disease, 
that the legislature of said State enacted a law forbidding the 
bringing of cattle from Texas into the State. All that was 
wrong with the Texan cattle was that they had not as much 
blood as those of higher latitudes, in proportion to their 
weight, and when the winter came about what blood these 
cattle had was withdrawn from the limbs, and they (the 
limbs) became cramped and numb, and the animal laid down 
and died. If Texan cattle were driven into the Northern 
States during the months of May and June, and well stabled 
when winter came, they would resist the climate much better. 
An immense number of cattle have died in the States of Iowa 
and Nebraska during the fall of 1878, and it appears that 
post-mortem examinations have confirmed the fact that masses 



3*7 



of corn husks and stalks have clotted in the first stomach 
until that function has inflamed and become putrid before 
the animal died. 

For the cause of this malady we are left to conjecture. It 
is known that in those counties and States where death 
was the greatest among the cattle, that the immense fall of 
rain during the spring and summer months of 1878 caused 
an unnaturally luxuriant growth of vegetation, and it is cer- 
tain that these vegetables do not possess as much nutriment, 
in proportion to their respective bulk, as they would, had 
there not been so much rain. And the probability is that 
such cattle as died gorged the first stomach with corn husks, 
more than tiie second stomach would receive after raising and 
chewing them, and the remainder was left in the first stomach 
until inflammation and consequent death. The best thing we 
can do is to give cattle a few bits of fat and well salted pork. 
The oil softens the masses of corn husks so that the cow can 
raise and chew them. They will readily eat the bits of pork 
for the salt that is in them. It is worse than useless to 
drench or fo^ce anything, down them that they will not take 
willingly. 

BLACK LEO. 

This black leg is the curdling or clotting of the blood in 
the limbs. If the amount of water is deficient, for the wants 
of cattle, the blood will not circulate, but will coagulate or clot 
in the limbs, and it becomes dark, and hence the name. 
Another fruitful cause of black leg is exposure to the cold 
wind in the winter. If the blood becomes cold (which it is 
liable to do when cattle are exposed) the blood ceases to cir- 
culate, and the bovine must die. If cattle are well protected 
during the winter, and plentifully watered at all times, there 
will be but little black leg. 

SWINE. 

The only disease among Swine of which we have much 
complaint, is the hog cholera. The concentration of heat to 
the stomach and bowels constitutes hog cholera, and- the rea- 
son that the disease prevails more in the Northwest is that 
hog^ are kept more in small pens, and confined to grain food. 
The hog is weaker during the months of July and August 
than any other time of the year. I have no cure to prescribe 
for this disease, but I will offer my brother farmers a pre- 



38 



ventitive. If you have no clover lot, nor any plat or fenced 
lot of green vegetables, on which to put your swine, sow a 
plat of land large enough for the number of hogs you pro- 
pose to feed, to oats or barley, as soon as the frost is out of the 
soil, and, as soon as it will grow, sow a lot of land to corn. 
Feed your pigs plentifully with dry corn until the middle or 
last of June, and then mow, and feed of the oats or barley 
until the first of August or thereabout, and then cut and give 
them green corn until hard frosts. A portion of dry corn 
may be fed to the pigs in connection with the oats or barley, 
but not enough to heat them. This treatment will develop a 
large and healthy stomach, and hogs so fed will grow and 
gain flesh much faster than those fed only dry corn during 
the summer. 

SHEEP. 

The foot rot among sheep is caused by a worm, or small 
worms, getting between the cloves ot the foot. The drug 
which most effectually kills these worms is lunar caustic. A 
solution of the wash may be put into a pail, and the feet of 
the sheep immersed in the wash. Another go # od way is to 
put a mass of the lunar caustic on the ground at the aperture 
of the fence where the sheep enter and come out of their lot. 
Let the caustic be two or three inches in depth. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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